Salt Skin

  While explaining this, Mark went to the number of tools spread out and, after looking at them for a minute, took one of the picklocks, which was called a “crank” in thief language.

  “The lock is old, basic,” the clerk said, inserting the picklock into the keyhole and, stiffening up a little, said, “It will take ten minutes.”

  For Rose, who was nervously flailing nearby, ten minutes seemed like eternity. When the lock was finally released, the young man smiled again with undisguised pride and, opening the door for the madam, as a true clerk, he bowed, letting her pass. While the woman looked inside the shed, Mark gathered all his things back into the bag and took it to the ladders hidden behind the structure.

  Suddenly, the sound of a car’s engine came from the forest, echoing around the semi-deserted area. Rose Krisi’s heart started beating with such furious force that it seemed it would jump out of her chest any minute and proceed to skedaddle on its own. She grabbed the collar of the clerk who was still unaware of the danger and forcibly dragged him to the closet packed full of old clothes. He had only managed to close the shed door and, stumbling in panic over broken toys, worn books and miscellaneous junk, squeezed into the closet with the woman hidden there. She managed to throw half of the clothes in one pile under a small, carved table, which was hidden behind old tools leaning on it. The slit of the closet, where the partners were sitting, allowed them to see the path from the door to the table.

  It took some time before they heard the approaching steps. The sound of the key pierced not only the heart of the lock but the ominous silence impregnated with trepidation. Mark saw a woman enter the door, carrying a small pile of notebooks tied with a thick string. She came in, turned her face to the door in order to close the lock, flipped both switches and took off her sunglasses.

  The young man almost ruined the whole operation from shock. He opened his mouth in horror and barely restrained the curses escaping his mouth.

  No, he was not struck by Margaret’s beauty, he was astonished by the realisation of whose house he was in now! Margaret was one of the richest and most respected people in town. Chief Judge Tony Suite himself was amongst her associates and, naturally, the young man could not help but recognize one of the town’s most influential people in this devilishly beautiful creature.

  Rose, at the risk of being exposed by the slightest noise, managed to cover the dumbfounded young man’s mouth with her hand. Luckily for them, Margaret did not hear anything as she headed towards the dresser, which was on the left of the closet in which the plotters were hiding. Although they were not plotting evil but what else do you call people breaking into other people’s sheds and hiding in the closet out of fear?

  The slit of the closet was very narrow so the pair was unable to see what happened next. However, besides the ability to see, God gave other gifts as well. Therefore, everything that happened next, they only heard and imagined.

  Judging by the sound, Margaret began to move something on their left, then she sat on the floor and the conspirators, holding their breath from fear and trepidation, heard one more turn of the key in yet another lock. Judging by the muffled and departing steps, Margaret went downstairs. Rose and Mark looked at each other restlessly. Peering into the young man’s frightened eyes, the African woman remembered her kids and felt a bit homesick. Her heart shrunk spurred by the adrenaline discharge. Oh, these mothers! They always remember their kids, whatever happens! You know, Monsieur Schwartz, that is the thing that makes us men very different from them.

  Then a nasty grinding of something wooden against the floor was audible, as if something was dragged or moved.

  Everything was quiet for a few minutes and only Margaret’s changed voice pierced the silence hanging in the restless air. In a sepulchral tone, slowly stretching her words, she said, “Heeere I aaam...”

  A wave of chills ran over the skin of the pair sitting above. The boy closed his mouth and nervously clenched his teeth so tight that the muscles on his cheekbones stood out like two bumps. With some regret, he remembered the homemade shotgun, which he absentmindedly left in the bag with tools. The woman felt slightly queasy; her imagination was storming and, without the ability to see, it painted the most horrible pictures in her head.

  Then they heard the thud of a slamming door. It resembled some muffled noise, like in a glass jar, heavy but solid. Suddenly, everything went silent.

  Perhaps fifteen minutes passed. Partners in crime, one of whom was trapped by a severe premonition and another by a thirst for adventure, in a word, by different fates but in the same closet, relaxed a little or, more likely, just disconnected as it usually happens in stressful situations with prolonged waiting.

  Finally, they heard a rustle from below once more. The same sounds were repeated, only in reversed order. The steps of Margaret coming up brought Rose and Mark back to an anxious state. They were afraid of giving themselves away somehow: to sneeze untimely or breathe loudly. What if the young woman decided to open the closet? What if she found the things hidden behind the shed? What if Mark did not put the barbed wire back in place precisely and the breakage with its sharp iron edges would give away their illegal entry? But again, luckily for both of them, nothing like that happened. Margaret, appearing again in their field of vision, paraded in high heels back to the entrance, turned off the light and left the shed.

  The pair in the closet sat motionless in the dark until the sound of the departing car finally dissolved in the thicket of the forest.

  Chapter 16

  The still frightened partners left their hiding place and, too scared to talk, slowly walked to the door. Rose stood behind the young man, feeling joyful because she was not alone right now. Meanwhile, Mark gently, almost soundlessly, turned the latch and, opening the door slightly, first slipped a hooked nose through the gap and then his whole head. There was no one around so, turning to the woman standing on her toes trying to see anything over his shoulder, he said,

  “I always knew there was something wrong with this lady. Well, what’s next?”

  Having returned for his bag with tools, which he had recently hidden behind the unfortunate shed, convinced that he would no longer need it, the young man came back inside and saw the woman kneeling with her back turned to him. For a moment, the boy thought that she was praying. After coming closer, he saw what he was expecting to see:

  “Cylindrical. Very old. It must be from the war. It can be drilled. It can be lock picked. What should I do?”

  Looking up from the door in the floor with worried eyes wet from tears into the eyes of the young man, Rose said absentmindedly,

  “Pick the lock...” After a short pause, she added, “In case she comes back.”

  After fifteen minutes, it was done and the pair went down, finding themselves in a small cellar. Everything was tidy and quite clean. On the shelves hanging from the walls neatly stood different brines, marinades, empty bottles, candles and other things. Under the shelves were cabinets around the perimeter, built into the walls and seemingly monolithic. On the opposite side of the ladder, there was an ancient carved closet, half-crumbling and not adjoining tightly to the wall. The pair stared at that closet and, having exchanged glances, simultaneously approached it and began to move it. The closet was very light because it was completely empty. Rose and Mark turned out to be great partners, their minds turned in the same direction and they had absolutely no need to talk aloud amongst each other.

  The man and the woman were convinced that they would find another door in the wall but were slightly disappointed when, pushing the closet away, they saw nothing behind it. Already starting to push it back into place, Rose suddenly stopped after seeing a strip slightly sunken into the concrete floor.

  The scene opening before their eyes shocked the already stunned partners. Of course, they suspected that there, in this cellar, was something else, but neither of them expected to see another door, especially, the one that would lead downwards again.

  “Perhaps, Margar
et’s stash is here? What if she hides gold or diamonds or ancient paintings smuggled from abroad...? Or the nation’s heritage?” Mark asked, glancing at the slightly green woman. She looked at the young man meaningfully, unable to utter a single word. Some feeling buzzing in her ears choked all the swarming thoughts in her throat, trying to escape. It was as if she realised that her worse fears were about to come true.

  Watching her determined eyes fixed on the floor, the clerk fully pushed the closet away and, having crouched down, only whistled confusedly.

  “Crap, what a lock!” He said puzzled, rubbing his forehead.

  “What’s wrong with it? You can’t open it?” Rose asked, finally shifting her gaze from the frightening door in the floor, which led to the unknown.

  “No, of course it is possible to open it. Everything is possible. But I will have to tinker. You know what, madam? Go upstairs and keep guard in case Ms. Strasberg decides to come back.” Slightly frustrated, the woman, afraid to miss the best part, reluctantly walked upstairs and sat down next to the trapdoor, which gave her a view of Mark working. The boy spread all his tools on the tarpaulin canvas once again and, spinning them in his hands in turn and tilting them towards the light, examined the edges of picklocks as a jeweller determines authenticity and value of diamonds. He then tried to find the right one by putting each of the picklocks into the lock and, each time leaning his ear to the floor and holding his breath, listened for the sound of turning.

  Four hours passed and Rose, who was unable to endure any longer, yelled in irritation,

  “Can’t you drill this damn lock?!”

  “Madam,” the clerk, immersed in deep thought, began, “if I could simply drill this, believe me, I would have done it long time ago, but it is impossible in this case. The lock is so small and crafty... I don’t have the suitable picklock, besides, the door is covered with concrete from above. If we were able to gouge that part...” But here Mark jumped as if stung. Unable to finish and blinded by some idea, he returned upstairs and ran out of the shed as fast as his legs could carry him. Confused, the woman assumed that he had gone to see to nature’s call, but when the clerk returned, she saw that he was holding barbed wire in his hands, the very same he had recently cut when they were climbing over the fence. Seized with either ecstasy or inspiration of the master, the boy sat again next to the unfortunate door that was challenging him. He took one of his picklocks and started soldering pieces of the wire to its edge.

  One more hour passed like this and Rose, who behind his back and from above could not see what the man was doing, leaned on the wall, stretched her legs in front of her and waited. Nobody knows how much time had passed before the woman’s thoughts, which went far beyond the shed, this town and indeed the whole of England, were cut by the clear short sound of the core rotation from below. The sound announced that the lock had finally given in.

  She was downstairs in a moment, looking at Mark who was smiling and blushing with pride. Two foldable iron handles were built along the edges of the door. Fatigue and hopelessness disappeared from the eyes of the partners filling them with triumphant lustre and conspiratorial pleasure. Their bellies were tickled by exciting anticipation. Right here, right now, they would reveal perhaps one of the most dangerous and mysterious secrets of the century! That is the alluring and attractive feature of all secrets, the essence of which is overcoming difficulties and daring to be involved in a dangerous adventure, to reveal them, relishing the treasure, which blinds its seeker with its precious light.

  Taking a deep breath, they both took the handles of the heavy door and slowly lifted it. Having opened it fully, the partners saw a completely black space and a white ladder dissolving into pitch darkness, extending to the very trapdoor. At first, the pair did not move, afraid to disturb the vehemently screaming silence as they stared intently into the depth. Suddenly, on the opposite side of the ladder somewhere nearby, they heard ringing of iron and a muffled, as if subdued cough. The woman felt goose bumps and the young man froze in place, rooted to the spot, pressing his hands into the edges that framed the hole so hard that blood drained from his fingers, turning them icy white.

  He reached for his flashlight when, suddenly, something big and black, similar to some kind of fabric, moved somewhere on the opposite side of the ladder where there was absolutely no light. The ringing of iron became sharper and the wheezes, similar to a human's, shackled the silent witnesses of the scene as though with the nails to the floor. Mark found the flashlight by feeling for it and without taking his eyes off the black space, turned it on. With trembling hands he began to light everything in turn beginning with the ladder itself. Rose clutched her hands into his shoulder, frozen in terror. An uneven and trembling track of light from the flashlight slowly slid over the ladder, buried itself into the concrete floor and gradually headed for the place where the sounds were coming from.

  The yellowish beam of light crashed onto the chaotic mountain of some rags and blankets piled up next to the wall, from which, at the height of one metre on each side, hung heavy, rusty chains hiding their ends beneath the stack of junk on the floor. The heap moved, swinging the chains, and the flashlight, wandering over it, stopped in stupor, lighting two black shiny eyes, which looked at the light without trying to narrow themselves, peeking out from torn blankets. Then the eyes lowered and withdrew their painful gaze. Behind the mound of blankets, after the eyes, a grey-haired head of a bearded, dark-skinned man appeared. It was swaying helplessly, falling down a bit, then rising again. An exhausted face, completely littered with wrinkles, gave away a sick old man, who looked like he was in his fifties.

  Stunned, Rose opened her mouth in complete shock, fighting the lump in her throat and oncoming tears. After a few minutes, narrowing her eyes, feebly and hesitantly, she forced herself to say,

  “Martin?”

  The eyes, black as night opposite of her, at first wandered with an absent look around the floor and then, starting to dart nervously, became dilated, filling their dead whirlpool with some glimmer of life.

  The man looked up to the place where he had heard the woman’s voice and drilled her with his eyes for a minute. It all seemed like mystical sounds to him. Nodding exhaustedly, he fainted.

  Chapter 17

  “Holy hell, what did I get myself into?” The visibly nervous clerk lamented, drilling holes in heavy rusted shackles and trying to remove them from the bolt. “That’s it! Never again! This time for sure! I am done!” The young man still cursed himself while, one by one, liberating both arms and then the legs of the old man lying motionless on the thin mattress. His body was so lean that resembled the scariest photographs of Auschwitz, from which nervous people are usually asked to refrain.

  Rose parked the old rented Volkswagen at the gate of the “house with a surprise” and covered the boy who was carrying the motionless body out of there. Finally, after putting the old man into the car, they drove off. The young man was experienced enough in such matters. Therefore, he refrained from any kinds of questions on that account. He did not start a conversation and was afraid that the woman would start it herself. Mark knew that the less he knew the better. He stared out the car window, grimly and immersed in silent contemplation, he indifferently watched the passing trees and fields, leading him farther and farther away from the ghastly unfortunate place.

  Having arrived at the hotel, Rose, whose plump cheeks were streaked with dark, silent tears during the whole trip, said,

  “We have to do something so that I can take him to my suite without arousing suspicion.” And she wiped away her tears, clearly making a great effort to pull herself together.

  “Suspicion?” Mark finally cried, still not completely conscious of the situation. But survival instincts took a hold of him, for the danger emanating from this whole story and from the woman sitting behind the wheel, seemed fatal to him.

  He tempered his tone and said,

  “I will take the keys and wait for you by the service entrance. Turn left be
hind the hotel and park the car nearby.”

  Bringing the old man into the woman’s room, the intimidating authority of which ascended to the heavens in Mark’s imagination, he suddenly felt that the victim’s body began to stir. The clerk carefully put him on the bed and stepped away without taking his eyes off the man. The old man’s body, hiding underneath worn clothes, resembled a body of a skinny teenager suffering from anorexia. He was inexpressibly light for a man of his age and height.

  Looking back, Mark locked eyes with the noticeably worried woman who was clutching a thin, greyish piece of paper in her hands:

  “Here is a check for ten thousand pounds. You were never with me. You did not see anything. I live in this suite alone.”

  The heavy burden on the baffled clerk’s soul, which seemed to pin him down to the ground, lightened a little and almost fell off. He did not know whether it was a crime against conscience or whether, conversely, he had done a good deed. However, taking the neatly folded check, he went out, obediently saying,

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The woman sat next to the man lying on her bed. His face, though it was motionless, exuded torture captured by years, which distorted his forehead with wrinkles and his cheeks with a loose hanging skin on the poorly covered skull. His lips were so dry that they had lost their pink colour and become covered with white skin patches. There was a low moan, then wheezing and the old man’s two big black eyes suddenly opened as if by an internal impulse. They flared light and went out immediately, staring at Rose with their empty gaze. Before he was able to open them, his eyelids slowly fell. Weakly licking his dried lips with the tip of his tongue, the man made a different sound, more like a sigh of relief, the reality of which was hard to believe.

  Rose brought water and moistened the man’s mouth. He opened his eyes again and, making an incredible effort, said in a hoarse voice,